Gigabyte HD 7970 Super Overclock Review

Gigabyte’s OC Guru II

To say we’ve been critical of past Gigbayte overclocking tools would be generous. We’ve consistently found them to be behind the competition in terms of functionality, features and stability but their new OC Guru II program is certainly a step in the right direction. We would actually say it is easier to use than any other program currently on the market.

The beauty behind OC Guru II is a simple and straightforward interface which gives an overclocker access to every option within one page. Clock speed, memory, voltage and other items are controlled by arrows below each clearly labeled section. There’s nothing hidden behind closed doors and any additional features can be accessed through secondary buttons within each designated area.

There is also a monitoring screen with all of the usual items like logging capability and adjustable graphs. We also loved the ability to manually control how aggressively the Super Overclock’s fans ramp up.

Unfortunately, while the memory voltage can be controlled, we weren’t able to increase the core voltage. Supposedly the software automatically determines the correct voltage for whatever core speed is applied but we prefer fine grain control and Gigabyte doesn’t offer that yet.

Overclocking Results

Using the OC Guru II, bumped memory voltage to the maximum allowed (1.8V) while letting the software determine core voltage allotment and the results were simply spectacular. While the fans did scream along, we were able to achieve a stunning core speed of 1302MHz and a blistering 6454MHz GDDR5 frequency. These are by far the highest frequencies we’ve achieved on a HD 7970. Naturally, the in-game performance benefits were significant:

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